M8 at a weekend instructional portrait lighting session

[johnalex141r]

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Hi all;

 

So last weekend I spent my time at the School of the Photographic Arts here in Ottawa, Canada. I had my M8, and a film Fujica GS645, the latter for a bit of a whim (why not?) I had the only M8 there.

 

Thoughts:

1) The lighting was bright; sometimes f16 @ iso160.

 

2) I used some lenses that I "never" use; *that was interesting. My CV 2.5/4.0/5.6 lenses worked very well in this setup.

 

3) The Instructor, Lawrence Cook, brought up comparison pics; the ones from the M8 and my CV90 were, as he put it, "more germanic" than ones from his Nikon. (the M8 compared well - better than others? that may be subjective)

 

4) I had trouble with one of the radio slaves syncing the flash system. I think that the hotshoe is not really a standardized item? looking at the bases of 3 of the radio triggers; the oldest one had the trigger pin positioned slightly differently on its hotshoe base.

 

5) I need some more software; Lawrence Cook showed us the NikSoftware Viveza stuff... the need to do more in terms of image manipulation is now apparent.

 

6) The desire to get a DLSR has once again diminished; the M8 worked wonderfully (other than the radio slave funny, mentioned above) in this environment.

 

Attached is a pic taken with the CV15, quickly modified by Lawrence to reduce saturation in the background, and increase the orange in the tweed coat.

 

All in all; a lot of fun.

 

JohnS

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[wda]

Thank you for an interesting run-down on your weekend portrait experience.

 

I rarely use my M8 with flash. Correction: I have never used my M8 with flash. However I may try my radio trigger with my Bowens kit just to see how it works. It may open up a new avenue in the dark days of winter.

[tollie]

On a few occasions I have used my M8 with a radio trigger in studio sessions... with no problem. The image attached was shot with my 90 summarit at ISO 160. I took it as a bw jpg... not raw and just lightly touched the tone curve. The lighting was a single strobe directly off to the left of the model.

 

Working with the M8 in this kind of setting forced me to be very deliberate in shooting... slowed me down and forced me to think and to be clear in my discussions with the model... both before a sequence and while the sequence unfolded.

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[rycm]

I am going to try my recently acquired Pocket Wizard mini on the M8, and flex attached to my Canopn 580EX II and 430 EX II on manual to see if the setup works.

[Jamie Roberts]

I am going to try my recently acquired Pocket Wizard mini on the M8, and flex attached to my Canopn 580EX II and 430 EX II on manual to see if the setup works.

 

It will only work if you have the alpha firmware available from PW. I use a FlexTT5 in manual mode with my M8 and it works, although it's very buggy (though I suppose that may be just the Flex TT5)...

 

Still, I use regular pocket wizards (plus, multis) all the time with the M8 with no problem whatsoever.

[larry]

Where I work, we use a MicroSync radio slave (MicroSync | Digital 4 Channel Radio Slave Kit | VMTRM | B&H) with a variety of cameras -- including my M8 -- with great success. It's reasonably priced and suitable for regular use if treated with respect.

 

Larry